Why Consumers Can’t Be Bothered to Use Their Phones to Pay for Things

Everyone from Google to every major cell carrier in the U.S. really, really wants consumers to start paying for things in stores with their mobile phones. And yet adoption of the technology in the U.S. has been slow. Similar "mobile wallets" have been available in Japan since 2004, and yet by the end of 2010, in a typical month only 10 percent of Japanese consumers were using their phones to make a purchase. So what's wrong with people?